Рассказ Леонида Андреева «Чемоданов» как житие «нижечеловека»

Вестник Российского университета дружбы народов. Серия: Литературоведение, журналистика. 2026. Т. 31. № 1. С. 39–48.

Мытарева А. В.

The article examines the story “Chemodanov”, 1916, as a parodic version of a hagiography (anti-life), as well as a version of the collision “Man - Fate” developed in the work of Leonid Andreev. The first part of the article provides an analysis of the existing context: some features of the writer's artistic world are identified, including clarifying the nature of the comic in Andreev's work. These observations relate both to the image of the philistine hero and to the genre game. At the same time, the appeal to genre transformation seems typical for the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. and it is found not only in Andreev's work, but also in the works of other contemporary authors. The second part of the article offers the experience of reading
the novel " Chemodanov " as a "twisted" hagiography. The narration is built on a hagiographic model: the description of the hero’s life is presented from the moment of birth to death, the events are miraculous in nature, the hero occupies a special position, the narrator acts as an impartial chronicler, the presentation is not rhetorical, but historical and documentary in nature. At the level of content, the author, creating a generalized image of a modern person, debunks the ability of the average person to act as a martyr, which is emphasized by the ironic tone of the narrative. The story of the ordeal of Yegor Yegorovich Chemodanov is a parodic version of the conflict “Man - Fate”, which was previously developed in “The Life of Vasily Fiveysky”. Unlike the story, the conflict in the novella is presented in an ironic modality and is not recognized by the hero as a struggle. The variability of the depiction of the same collision allows us to question the thesis of Leonid Andreev’s totally pessimistic worldview, and the rethinking of the hagiography genre anticipates the turn to hagiography in the literature of the 20th century.

Keywords: агиография, hagiography, пародия, Леонид Андреев, parody, Leonid Andreev, genre analysis, анализ жанра